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Work smarter: Keep staff physically active

This article was taken from the February 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.

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Technogym

Keep staff physically active

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Cesena

When executives gather for a meeting in the new Antonio Citterio-designed Technogym "wellness village" and factory in Cesena, north-eastern Italy, no one sits on a Vitra chair or glides about on a Herman Miller Aeron.

Instead, they sit on a fabric-wrapped "wellness ball" -- an elegant version of the ball your personal trainer would recommend. That's because Nerio Alessandri, founder and president of the gym-equipment manufacturer, wants staff to live its mission of bringing "wellness" to the world -- at the same time optimising their own health. "We have 800 balls here [instead of chairs]," he explains in the 60,000m2 HQ, inaugurated last September by Bill Clinton and Italian president Giorgio Napolitano. "Everybody uses them. We have the medical evidence about the benefits."

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These benefits, Alessandri says, come down to the constant motion that the balls force upon those sitting on them. "On the ball you don't have stability, but you have hours of training every day. You keep moving constantly. It also benefits your neurological system." Back pain, he claims, can clear up within two weeks of using the balls.

Admittedly, Technogym is obsessively focused on its wellness mission: staff have a mandatory two-hour lunch break, during which they are encouraged to use its vast on-site gym. But what if they want to use a normal office chair? "You can," says Alessandri. "At first staff didn't want to change. But now they don't want to go back."